Platt: Town of Canmore slaughtering reputation as it slaughters feral rabbit population

A sedate rabbit waits to be prepped for neutering at Animal and Bylaw Services Centre in Calgary on Sunday, February 19, 2012. Feral bunnies making headlines for their proliferation in Canmore were rounded up and brought to the clinic for volunteer-driven spay and neutering. LYLE ASPINALL/CALGARY SUN/QMI AGENCY

It’s a rabbit rub out — and once news of the slaughter spreads, Canmore, may as well change the town’s motto from “Do more, Play more, Live more” to “We Kill Fluffy Bunnies.”

Fair? Maybe not.

But for the first time since Canmore’s feral rabbit invasion made the news in 2011, the town west of Calgary has resorted to euthanizing captured cottontails, rather then relocating them to sanctuaries.

It’s an issue of space, and those trying to save the condemned bunnies have no more sanctuary room to offer, after managing to house 235 of the neutered prisoners during a roundup last spring.

With no one available to take the rabbits captured this fall, Canmore officials say there was no choice but to fire up the town’s officially-approved euthanization machine and start killing.

“We feel really strongly that it’s the right thing to do in our community and the people who live here have clearly asked for it,” said Sally Caudill, communications manager for the Town of Canmore.

Last year, after the town voted to eradicate an estimated 2,000 domestic rabbits, the story made international headlines.

The feral bunnies are likely the result of some fool releasing pet rabbits into the wild, and the rabbits have been blamed for everything from garden destruction to attracting hungry coyotes to Canmore.

But it’s one thing to trap and remove a cute pest, and another to systematically exterminate what many see as an adorable, harmless animal.

Word of the impending cull raised the ire of animal lovers far and wide, putting Canmore on the map in a way a tourism-dependant town should probably avoid.

As well as news articles and seething comments, there were outraged calls and furious e-mails to the town hall from around the world, plus an anti-Canmore tourism boycott organized online.

But then, just as rabbit rage hit full steam, the town caught a break.